Carmelo Anthony is committed to going the distance with his social activism efforts, and he strongly advises Colin Kaepernick to do the same.

In a sit-down interview with ESPN’s Howard Bryant published Tuesday, the 32-year-old Knicks forward detailed the conversation he had with Kaepernick the very night the quarterback’s decision to sit for the national anthem before a 49ers preseason game caused a national uproar. Anthony said he admires the quarterback for the “courage” he’s shown in starting a movement and withstanding the backlash, but he believes there’s much more to be done in the face of deep-rooted racial injustice.

“I’m watching and I’m like, ‘OK.’ Like, ‘What’s next?'” Anthony asked himself, recounting the text conversation with Kaepernick. “In a very respectful way, he was like, ‘I took this step and, you know, just wanted to get your thoughts on what’s happening.’ And I said, ‘Well, you’re courageous.’

“I said, ‘You just showed a lot of courage in what you just did, but now is the hard part because you have to keep it going. So if that was just a one-time thing, then you’re f–ked. But now you keep it going and be articulate and elaborate on why you’re doing it, and be educated and knowledgeable of why you’re doing it so when people ask, you can stand up for what you believe in and really let them hear why.'”

Anthony made his own statement — an Instagram post imploring athletes to speak out about injustice, even in the face of dropped endorsements — in early July. After Kaepernick took action, many followed in or near his footsteps, by kneeling, raising fists, linking arms (as the Knicks did with the Rockets in their preseason opener). But the reflective basketball star sees the country’s racial strife as evidence of a bleak future if people like he and Kaepernick don’t continue their fight against the “broken system.”

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“These times, they’re crazy,” Anthony said. “It’s not about the one thing. The system is broken. You hear people saying, ‘Justice or else.’ I think you’re starting to see what ‘or else’ looks like.”

That “or else” has become most evident in the media’s coverage of police brutality, which Anthony credits for drawing him to the cause but criticizes for masking the real issue: a flawed education system.

“All you see is police killing people,” Anthony, who was raised in Baltimore, lamented. “And if I’m sitting there watching that every day all day, I’m going to feel a certain kind of way. Like, against the police. If it was showing schools and why they shut them down and there’s no funding for this and no funding for that, you would feel a certain way about that too. But that’s not what they’re putting out there.”

Without proper education, the police and the citizens they protect will never achieve a peaceful, working relationship, according to Anthony. Especially when you have white police looking after black communities.

“Like, you can’t put white police in the ‘hood,” Anthony said. “You just can’t do that. They don’t know how to react. They don’t know how to respond to those different situations. They’ve never been around that, you know?”